


Gotta Get High If It Kills You

by termitetaya



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, also language and substance use, content warning for masturbation jokes because this is roman roy, gerri kellman is a milf simply, i am a simple woman i see gerri kellman and i go insane, the title is from a ballpark music song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28971192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/termitetaya/pseuds/termitetaya
Summary: Gerri has to go make sure Roman doesn't choke on his own vomit. Because it would be bad for optics. Obviously.
Relationships: Gerri Kellman/Roman "Romulus" Roy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	Gotta Get High If It Kills You

Gerri Kellman was on her second glass of wine, a bottle of cheap red that she had picked up from a Trader Joe's, when she got the text.

_ Romulus: hey gerr bear. need some help maybe _

Lovely. Roman, daddy's boy and self-entitled prick, asking Gerri for help on her first self care night in weeks.

_ Gerri: Roman, this better be quick. Believe it or not, I have a life outside of your family. _

_ Romulus: ya ya no one cares _

_ Romulus: unfortunately i am extremely lost and very very high so _

_ Romulus: u comin? _

Gerri sighed, taking off her glasses and pinching the bridge of her nose, willing herself to text him a polite "fuck off" or at least put down the phone. Instead, she pulled a cardigan on over her pajamas and called her driver. 

When a ride was arranged and she was in the lobby of her apartment building, waiting to be picked up, she finally texted him back.

_ Gerri: Where are you? What are you on? _

Gerri stared at her phone, waiting for the little blue text bubble to show up with some sort of sexual joke and poor grammar. When nothing came, she turned her data on and off again, over and over. The wine was wearing off fast, and she felt worry bubbling up in her stomach. No one would be surprised if Roman Roy, of all people, showed up dead in a river, but that didn't mean she wouldn't feel bad about it.

The car pulled up in front of the building, and Gerri was outside and into the car before the driver had even pulled out his phone to let her know. 

"Where to?" he asked, his eyes looking at her through the mirror, anonymous and unjudging. She relaxed a little.

"Would you happen to know any of the clubs that are popular with yuppie assholes around here?"

The driver looked down for a moment, running his hands up and down the wheel anxiously. "Unfortunately not, ma'am. I really only drive around legal counsel, unless Mr. Roy says otherwise."

"Fuck," Gerri muttered, staring back down at her phone like it could give her answers. "Just give it your best guess, then. Give me a second to investigate."

The driver nodded a silent affirmative and pulled away from the curb, driving in the direction of the lights that looked the most neon in the dark.

Maybe Kendall might know?

_ Gerri: Hey, Ken. Any idea where your idiot brother might be? _

_ Kendall: which one _

_ Gerri: Roman. Obviously. _

_ Kendall: how the fuck should i know _

_ Kendall: not my brother's keeper, and all that shit _

_ Gerri: Okay. Thank you so much for your time and effort, then. _

_ Kendall: anytime _

Okay, so Kendall was not in the mood at the moment. He was probably tripping out as well, wherever he was. Good god, Gerri was regretting ever getting saddled with this stupid, pathetic, drug riddled family.

She really hoped Roman wasn't bleeding out in an alley somewhere.

Greg next.

_ Gerri: Hey. Would you happen to know where Roman is? Or where he goes when he parties? _

_ Greg: Oh hi Gerri!!!! _

_ Greg: Roman really likes all those gross clubs with like sex rooms and stuff. There was this one that was like in a tunnel?  _

_ Greg: It was really gross and like did not seem legal _

_ Gerri: Do you have any addresses for me? Any details? _

_ Gerri: Please? _

_ Greg: Hold on _

Greg sent a link to a Google Streetview of some disgusting underpass. Gerri was pretty sure she could see a dead rat in the picture. However, she could also see a doorway, and figured that was probably the club Greg was referencing. For such a dumbass stoner, Greg could really make himself useful.

_ Greg: It's through that like maintenance door thingy _

_ Greg: I think I know a couple other places he goes but lately he keeps telling me weird stories that happened at this one I think _

_ Greg: And he and Tabitha met there so _

_ Greg: Is that helpful?? o_o _

_ Gerri: Yes. Very much so. Thanks. _

_ Greg: :)))) _

_ Gerri: Emojis are not very professional, Greg. _

_ Greg: :( _

She gave the driver the directions, telling him to park on the gravel by the train tracks. He raised his eyebrows slightly, but continued driving without question.

_ Greg: Would it be okay or like professional or whatever if I asked what this is about _

_ Greg: I'm assuming you aren't going to party _

_ Greg: No offense I don't mean you can't party because you're older _

_ Greg: Respectfully _

Greg wasn't even raised in the Roy household, so Gerri had to assume at this point that the stupidity was genetic, and not just a byproduct of growing up in a mansion with the richest asshole in the United States.

_ Gerri: Not that it's any of your concern, but Roman is a fucking idiot, as I'm sure you know. _

_ Gerri: Just cleaning up another Roy mess. That's all. _

_ Greg: Haha been there. Good luck :) _

_ Greg: I mean Good luck. _

Gerri really didn't need luck. She'd been working for this family longer than Greg had been alive, probably, and she knew how to deal with her fair share of alcoholics with superiority complexes.

It'd been different, though, lately. Ever since Roman had proposed their… collaboration, their partnership at the head of the Roy empire, she felt… different. She had always just been Gerri, a reliable but forgettable Lincoln Log in the jumble of a cabin that the Roy's called Waystar. You went to Gerri to make sure you weren't going to sink the company, not to ask for her actual thoughts and ideas. But Roman was different. Yeah, he was still another Roy mess to be swept under the rug, but he saw Gerri's potential as a sweeper, and not just as the broom.

The car pulled to a stop, the crunch of the gravel under its tires stirring the anxiety in Gerri's chest. She told the driver to wait 15 minutes and then come find her, if he had to, and then got out of the car and shuffled into the dark tunnel.

When she reached the door, she paused, unsure how to proceed. She pulled at it, found it to be unlocked, and hesitantly stepped up and into the pitch black. If she got stabbed looking for Roman, she would drag him down into hell with her.

Luckily, a light flickered somewhere further down the corridor, and she followed it until she found something resembling the entrance to a club. She walked up to the woman who she could only assume was the bouncer, standing in front of her and crossing her arms to make it clear she expected her full attention. The woman looked her up and down, taking in her pajamas and her age. "Are you… lost?" She asked.

"Roman Roy. Have you seen him?" The bouncer looked at her, mouth frozen open in confusion. "Excuse me," Gerri continued, cocking her head authoritatively, "Is Roman Roy here?"

"Yes, he came in about an hour ago. Who are you?"

"I'm about to be his worst nightmare. Let me in."

"Ma'am, I can't--"

"I'm his lawyer, and if you don't let me in, I'll saddle you with so many lawsuits you won't be able to breathe under all the paperwork." She was bluffing, obviously, but she happened to be very good at it. The bouncer paled and moved out of her way.

"He's probably upstairs. Take the elevator," she called after her.

Gerri marched across the wet pavement in the direction the bouncer had pointed. If she looked confident enough, no one would stop to question a middle aged woman in her pajamas showing up to a seedy nightclub. She stepped into the crowded elevator, once again crossing her arms and looking as lawyerly and official she could in her fucking kitten-yarn-ball patterned pants, wishing she had taken any other path in life, and wondering how on earth she had made it here. 

Back when Baird was around, her life had been so elegant-- dinner parties, wine tastings, a once yearly beach vacation, retirement somewhere in the future. She had loved that life, loved feeling valued and sophisticated and so adult. Back when Roman was just a little boy, and he would run around the office while she worked. It seemed like forever ago, when her only view of Roman was through layers of glass.

Now, her relationship with him was nowhere near professional, and layers of glass were replaced with a wooden bathroom door and not much else. Jesus Christ, how had she gone from a well respected attorney and wife to a glorified porno babysitter?

The elevator dinged and the doors opened into the most poorly lit building she'd ever been in, fuzzy projections on the wall already triggering the beginnings of a migraine. She was too old for this.

She located the nearest bar, flagging down the bartender, who looked at her with the most neutral expression she had ever seen. She could tell this man had seen some shit.

"I'm looking for someone. A man-baby, almost 40, extremely vulgar. Looks like he probably kicked a small child on his way here."

"Roman?"

" _ Yes, _ " Gerri sighed, exasperated. "Where will I find him?"

The bartender pointed to Gerri's right, but everything looked so homogenous and disorienting that she dug her palms into her eyes for a second.

"Go that way, find the door with the weird stain on it, go through it, and then follow the hallway to the end. There'll be a white door there. Roman usually goes in there. Hot boxes it until someone comes up to me to complain."

"Jesus H Christ," Gerri muttered, then reached into her wallet and found a fifty, handing it to the bartender. "Thanks," she said. 

"Don't mention it," he replied, nodding. A kindred soul, sick of all the shit young billionaires get into.

Gerri followed his directions, making sure to step over a pile of vomit and away from the man holding his dick, finally reaching the white door. She pulled it open, the smell of weed immediately making her sick.

She looked around the room, taking it in slowly. A couple ugly couches, probably pulled off the street and repurposed for that gentrification aesthetic that rich people so desperately craved. A glass table with a couple novelty bongs and a ceramic bowl filled with nondescript pills. A couple women sitting on one of the couches, legs intertwined, laughing grossly at a dumb video on one of their phones. And, most importantly, Roman, who was laying face down on the other couch. The button-up he had been wearing earlier in the day was discarded next to the couch, covered in some kind of substance she didn't want to think about. Roman was wearing nothing but a wife beater and a pair of boxers. His pants were nowhere to be found. His shoes, oddly enough, were lined up next to the couch neatly.

"Roman." Gerri said, firmly. He didn't move.

" _ Roman Roy, _ " she said, using her best lawyer voice. He still didn't move.

She knelt next to him, grabbing at his neck and feeling for a pulse, muttering profanities and praying to all the gods she could think of that he wasn't dead yet.

"Oh, hey, Gerri," he mumbled into the couch. "Nice of you to come."

Gerri slumped back onto the floor, catching herself with one hand and smacking Roman's shoulder with the other.

"Ooh," he said, still smothered by the couch, "Feisty. Daddy likey."

"Roman Roy, I'm going to drag you by your ankles into the fiery pits of hell before you reach the age of forty, I swear to God. I'm going to kill you myself, and I'm going to make your father eat you for dinner."

Roman finally got up, shoving off the couch pathetically and slumping against the back. "Sounds hot."

Gerri sighed, once again reaching her hands towards her eyes before realizing that she'd never had pink eye before and didn't really want it now. Instead, she put her hands on each of Roman's knees, white knuckling it and staring him straight in his tired little eyes. "I was really, really worried about you. Don't do that again."

"Okay, cool, but first, I actually do need your help," he responded, this time slurring his words noticeably. "I am not feeling good, and I do not remember how to get out of here."

"What did you take, Roman?"

"Weed. Some chick, with, like, the shittiest looking dye job I've ever seen, traded me a whole bag of bud. I smoked, like, a lot of it."

"Okay, and?"

"What? That's it," Roman said, bloodshot eyes drifting around her face. 

"You're telling me you got this shit-faced from some  _ weed _ ? Fuck, Roman, I've seen you smoke your body weight in weed and you still came out fine. So what else?"

"Okay, so, I may have also taken some kind of pill that someone handed me. I do not know what it was." Gerri took in a sharp breath, about to let out a profane rant of flagellations, but Roman interrupted. "Before you yell at me, consider this."

Gerri waited a moment, pointing her chin in a way that she hoped gave off "this better be good". "Yes?"

He pressed his knees together and lifted his pointer finger to his lips in the dumbest impression of a schoolboy she'd ever seen. "I'm a very naughty boy and naughty boys should be punished," he said, his face twisting into the dumbest fucking grin Gerri had ever seen. She grabbed his wrist and yanked him up, slinging his arm over her shoulder and half dragging him out of the room. 

"Bye, Rome! Don't forget the wedding date!" one of the couch women shouted out after them.

"She's nice," Roman mumbled into Gerri's ear. "Those two are getting married. They asked me to officiate." Gerri didn't validate this with a response.

Ignoring the curious looks of the wasted crowd around them, Gerri and Roman stumbled back out the way she had come.

"Roman, I don't think you even understand how genuinely pathetic and exhausting you are. You exhaust me. And what the fuck did you even mean, you traded for the weed? Traded what, your dignity? Cause that's certainly gone, not that you really had it in the first place."

"My watch. The watch I was wearing."

Gerri stopped, staring at his eyes, searching for the joke. Their faces were barely more than an inch or two apart, and Gerri could smell the alcohol and weed on his breath. She could also tell that he was definitely not kidding. 

"Your fucking  _ watch _ ?" she hissed. "For a bag of weed you traded a  _ watch _ ? Roman, do you know how much that was probably worth? Not exactly a fucking department store silver watch. Knowing your family, it probably cost enough to buy a small island, you fucking asshat."

Roman gave her a cross-eyed little smile, too out of it to come up with a clever retort. He gestured lamely at his head. "Asshat. Ha."

Gerri rolled her eyes and yanked him onward, through the crowd and into the elevator, hoisting him up when he tried to sit down onto the floor of the elevator like a drunk puppy. And soon they were out, back into the cold night air in the tunnel, ears ringing in the silence. 

"Okay. Stay here, I'll bring the car up. Don't choke on your own vomit," Gerri said, propping Roman against the cold cement wall and turning away. He grabbed her wrist, pulling her back gently.

"Gerrrrrrrrri. Gerri berry. Don't leave me alooooooooone. I'm too pretty, someone will come murder me and chop me up and keep me in jars to jerk off to."

"What, you want me to drag you all the way back? No, thanks. Have fun in your jars, I'll be right back." She tried to walk away again, but felt Roman's loose grip on her wrist hold still. It would be so easy to pull free. It would be so easy to go get the car, drive him home, and leave him in bed, free to piss himself and clean it up in the morning. Alone.

He tugged gently on her wrist. She realized she had stopped again, staring in the direction of the car but not actually any closer to it, and Roman seemed to have interpreted this as hesitation. It was, technically. She turned around to face him again, and he gave his little sick puppy grin. "Hello again."

"Okay. We sit here for a minute until you feel good enough to walk, and then we walk to the car together. Okay?"

Roman had already slid down the wall and was sitting on the gravel, his boxers the only barrier between his skin and the cold beneath. Gerri used his shoulder to support her weight, lowering herself onto the ground next to him.

He fingered one of the little cats on her pajamas gently, like a child touching the back of a beetle. "Very cute," he said, "Very old spinster."

"Yes, well, I was settling in for the night when I got your text. It's--" she glanced at her phone-- "after midnight, now. This was supposed to be my night to relax, Roman."

"Ooooh, a night in, a date with your showerhead, some wine and a vibrator and--"

"Not everyone masturbates as much as you do. Clearly you never got past your hormonal teenage years, unlike the rest of us."

"Yeah, but, like, I'm right, right?"

Gerri sighed, loudly, for what felt like the hundredth time in the last hour. She knew, deep inside herself, that she wasn't mad at Roman, and that she didn't mind being here, and that she loved rescuing the Roys from themselves. This Roy in particular. But she was tired, and chronically stressed, and kind of… nostalgic. Nights like the one she had originally planned, nights with the wine and the news and a nice hot bath, made her miss Baird and her old life. She had been more than a corporate slave, once, had had love and hobbies and a sense of moral right and wrong. But then Baird died, and it was just her, alone, with Waystar Royco ball-and-chaining her, and Logan Roy cracking the whip. 

So yeah, she didn't mind keeping Roman from inducing his own heart failure, but she hated that this was the one barrier between her and complete emptiness. Taking care of a manchild was what kept Gerri from becoming the morally bankrupt corporate lawyer everyone already thought she was, and that thought made her feel profoundly hopeless.

Gerri was stirred out of her train of thought by the weight of Roman's head on her shoulder. He scooted up next to her until his side was flush with hers, his right hand sitting softly on her left knee and his bare foot brushing against her moccasins. This was the maybe the most physical closeness Gerri had felt since losing Baird, outside of shallow corporate hugs.

"Thank you," Roman mumbled. "For coming here. For rescuing me."

Gerri put her hand over his, thumb grazing over the back of his hand soothingly. "Anytime. You know that."

"I know."

They sat in silence for a moment, just enjoying the comfort of mutual contact. Eventually, Gerri heard Roman say, quietly, gravelly, "What would my dad think about this?"

Gerri sighed. Again. "Roman, who gives a fuck what your dad thinks? If you ever tell anyone I said this, I will deny it outright and they will obviously take my word for it, but your father doesn't seem to genuinely care for anyone or anything that won't directly affect his stock portfolio. His opinion of you means nothing to me, and it bothers me that it seems to mean so much to all of his children."

Roman was quiet for a second, so that all Gerri could hear was his breathing and the sounds of the city in the distance. "Um, okay, I. I kind of meant for that to be, like, a bit of sexy banter, but that's fine too, I guess."

"Fuck, Roman, now? You're trying to get yourself off  _ now _ ?"

"No." A pause. "Maybe."

Gerri laughed, a shrill, ironic, spiteful little laugh. "God, I've been a tool for the Roys so long. Never thought it would come to this, being used for everything under the sun including the masturbation material for the richest pervert in New York."

Roman pulled his head off her shoulder for a second, and, though she didn't turn her head to look at him, Gerri could tell he was looking at her in genuine surprise. "Wait, do you, like, actually think that's what this is?"

"What  _ what _ is?'

"What this is! Our thing! Our, little, like, dealio!"

"Then, yes, I think our little 'dealio' is just another task on my long To Do list as RoyCo's favorite corporate janitor."

"Okay, well, you're wrong, but I'm too fucked up to explain why, so, just, like. I care about you. A lot. Very much. Unfortunately. Don't get your old lady panties in a twist about it, or, whatever, but. Yeah."

Coming from Roman, that felt like a confession of absolute love, adoration beyond compare. Gerri felt that same tightness in her chest, but it wasn't anxiety this time. She didn't want to think about it. 

After a moment of sitting with Roman's words in the air, Gerri patted his hand, slowly, and stood up. She offered him a hand, and they worked together to get him on his feet. He wavered for a second, neither of them sure if he could stay straight, but when he didn't fall, they started the walk towards the car. Roman seemed to be focusing all his attention on moving one foot in front of the other without tripping over air, so they walked in silence.

When they reached the car, they found the driver leaning against the hood with a cigarette between his teeth, his coat pulled tight against his shoulders to keep out the cold. "Oh, good," he said. "I was about to head in to find you."

"No need, thanks," Gerri said, opening the door and herding Roman inside. She scooted in after him, closing the door behind herself, sealing the three of them inside. 

"Where to?" the driver asked.

"Home," Gerri said. "And turn the heat up, please. Before Mr. Roy here gets frostbite and loses his fingers, like the moron he is."

"Thanks, Gerri," he muttered, pulling his legs up onto the seat and laying his head back into Gerri's lap. "If I lost my fingers, I wouldn't be able to fuck your mom anymore, and that would just be tragic." 

And then he was asleep, drooling a little bit onto Gerri's pajama pants. Just another fucking day in the Royco shit show fuck factory, Gerri thought.  


**Author's Note:**

> i don't write fanfiction like ever so sorry in advance if this is bad i just love gerri kellman and weirdly relate to roman a lot


End file.
